it requirede obama, just opening up the paper and looking at all the photographs. but they were best represented from their time in the white house. >> how much research did you do on the women featured in this painting before you began to work? history, i am familiar with all of them. the visual references are what i require the most. immediately to my collection of first lady portraits and things like that. i saw what they would like to be seen as publicly. then i went through the various images. martha was a lot harder. her portrait is probably the best likeness there is. so i simply went on that one. for the others, it was more on photography. , ih all of that information pieced together images i thought were good and representative. >> what is the process you go through in starting to work on a painting? how much work goes into the project before you start it? research andll the background. for a normal portrait of someone i need to really represent d, i needfe-size and 2- to get to know them. in this case, it is different with public figures and i am using th